Thursday, May 9, 2024

Meet Gabriel Evans


I will be meeting Gabriel Evans (as Bluey would say - in real life!) on Saturday. I am usually quite shy at author/illustrator events (many years ago at the Sydney Writers Festival I really wanted to say thank you to Kate DiCamillo but sadly didn't; I did stammer something to Sophie Blackall at a Gleebooks event but not very coherently) so I hope I have the courage to actually say hello to Gabriel Evans


He is coming to Sydney from Perth to share his newest book:


IBBY Australia were so thrilled to have a piece of art from Gabriel for our Mini Masterpiece art auction last year. And this year A friend for George was shortlisted for our Ena Noël award

Here is an interview with Oz Lit Teacher. And a video interview from 2022 (11 Minutes). He mentions Isabelle Arsenault

Here are some books I have previously talked about:









You can follow Gabriel Evans on Facebook. That's where I first saw these sweet looking mice stories or perhaps it was on his Instagram page


These were written many years ago in 2014/15- I would love to see them. Take a look here

Interesting facts about Gabriel that I found on his webpage:

  • I love growing oak trees – I’ve planted over fifteen varieties on our hill.
  • I love drinking coffee from a Cornishware mug. These mugs have white and blue stripes and often make an appearance in my books.
  • I spent several years illustrating before I wrote my first picture book, Ollie and Augustus.
  • My books have been published in fifteen countries, shortlisted in several national awards including the CBCA Picture book of the Year, read on ABC’s Play School and reviewed in the New York Times.



I loved the first book in the series by Tor Seidler (A Rat's Tale).







Here are a couple of sweet images from Gabriel Evans - they make me sigh with happiness. Look at his page of thoughts and sketches. And look at his gallery here. 





Image source: Reddit



The Friendship Bench by Wendy Meddour illustrated by Daniel Egneus




Tilly has moved to a new house. She has her good friend Shadow but Shadow is a dog and so he is not allowed to go to school. Tilly feels lost and alone at school until her teacher suggests she try the friendship bench. But when Tilly walks across to the friendship bench someone else is sitting there. Then the teacher suggests trying again. A little boy is sitting there. He explains the bench is broken. Is there some way these two kids can get this bench to work?

Read this perfect first sentence (sigh - the illustration shows a lighthouse and I hope you saw one on the cover):

"Tilly and Shadow had found a new home by the splash and curl of the sea."

Think about that beautiful phrase - the splash and curl of the sea. 

Oh, and wait until you see the teacher - he looks like an old seafaring grandfather with his big white beard and Fair Isle pattern jumper. It is a small school - perhaps it is on an island?



And there is a whole conversation to be had from the final wordless double spread. 

The Friendship Bench is rich in meaning, pathos, hope and soaring, subtle images. Bookwagon

The Friendship Bench was published in 2022. It is available in paperback so can I suggest you jump in quickly and add it to your school library shopping list. Books today do not stay in print for very long and this is a book you absolutely must add to your collection. It would be the perfect book for your younger classes to hear at the start of the year. I highly recommend this book. It is worth shopping around, though, I've seen it listed between AUS$17 and AUS$26.50. As a quiet and shy child I am sure if I had heard this book when I was younger this book would have touched my heart and given me the hope of finding a true friend. 

Companion books:









Each book by Wendy Meddour and Daniel Egneus sensitively explores feelings in a way in which young children can understand and empathise with. Moving house and/or school is such a significant event at any time of life, but for some children, particularly those who are quiet or shy, it can be really difficult. Through the Bookshelf

Wendy Meddour is a fairly new discovery of mine, but I have to say I have totally fallen in love with her books and with the illustrations by Daniel Egneus.






Wednesday, May 8, 2024

If I had a little dream by Nina Laden illustrated by Melissa Castrillon


"If I had a little house,
I would name it Love.
Love would make me happy
and protect me like a glove. ...

If I had a little pond,
I would name it Wonder.
Wonder would show me beauty
above the water and under."

You might like to read my previous post about picture books that contain poems, or philosophical musing. If I had a little dream perfectly fits this category. It is a lyrical book with scrumptious illustrations and it would be a comforting book to share during a quiet reading time with your young reading companion but you do need to know there is no actual narrative in this book. It is just a series of thoughts or dreams or musings. It could be a lovely gift for a new child or as a Christening present. If you read this book to a class of older students the form of each page/poem could be used as a writing stimulus.

If I had a little land; If I had a little house; If I had a little garden; If I had a little pond; If I had a little boat; If I had a little bicycle; If I had a little table; If I had a little chair; If I had a little dog; If I had a little cat; If I had a little brother; If I had a little sister; If I had a little book; If I had a little bed; and finally the last page matched the title - If I had a little dream.



Jacket flap: Celebrate the wonder of the world in this reassuring picture book about the joy, love, and beauty that is part of each and every day. Our world is full of possibilities if you look for them.

Some people (reviewers) are lucky and are sent advance copies of new books - this rarely happens to me but I am lucky because twice each year our local Lifeline hold a charity book sale and I always find so many book treasures - many for gifts and some to keep.

If I had a Little Dream (2017) is listed as AUS$30 on an online bookseller site - my copy was AUS$4 from the sale and it is in mint condition, with an intact dust jacket which, when lifted, reveals a different cover image - I am a huge fan of this. Now I have to decide will I keep this book on my own bulging shelves or gift it to a family.

You can see more books by Nina Laden here. You could use this video with your library group (I would turn off the sound and read it yourself). 

Within the art’s parameters, each page turn produces a fresh look in terms of layout, negative space, and appealing, eye-catching details. The overarching sentiments are love and gentleness, and the verse and artwork complement each other as they lull a child into sleepiness. ... Easy on the eyes and ears; excellent for bedtime. Kirkus

I picked up this book because I have seen other books illustrated by Melissa Castrillon and I do really love her art style. Melissa Castrillon is an and English and Colombian illustrator based in the southeast of England. She spends a large chunk of her days illustrating and writing picture books for children as well illustrating and designing book covers for readers of all ages. She has illustrated more than ten picture books, written three and they have been translated into more than 20 languages around the world.

Her newest book published earlier this year is Love is my favourite Colour (Color for US readers).










Tuesday, May 7, 2024

Meet the illustrator Beth Krommes




One of our large chain bookstores recently filled a table with children's books that had been on their shelves since 2018. All of the books were 50% off the retail price. I saw Blue on Blue by Joyce Sidman (2014) illustrated by Beth Krommes. Silly me - I didn't buy it - and now I regret that decision. When I visited a school library this week, I grabbed three other books by Joyce Sidman illustrated by Beth Krommes. I really love her illustration style. Sadly, here in Australia her books are fairly expensive but perhaps you can add one or two to your library or pop them onto your wish list. 

Here are some Kirkus star review comments that describe her work:

Before MorningKrommes' inimitable scratchboard illustrations play with perspective and point of view as they flesh out Sidman’s short poem, written in the form of an invocation. Washed with orange, tan, and icy blue, they open and close with landscapes reminiscent of Virginia Lee Burton’s work.

Blue on BlueFolk-art–inspired illustrations, astonishing in both their technical accomplishment and their heart, harmonize beautifully with lyrical language.

Beth Krommes is a Caldecott medalist (The House in the Night) and Joyce Sidman is a Newbery Honor winner (Dark Emperor and Other Poems of the Night). Beth Krommes lives in Peterborough, USA. Read more about her Caldecott medal here

Here is a list of all books illustrated by Beth Krommes with details of the awards they have won. Check out my previous post about Butterfly eyes and Other Secrets


We are Branches is the latest book illustrated by Beth. In this book readers can explore the myriad of ways you can see branches at work. Yes, they are part of trees but also the way tree roots stretch through the soil is another example of branches. Flowers are found at the end of the branches on plants. Rivers form branches as they flow towards the ocean. Look up at lightning and you will see branches of light and energy. The dry land after years of drought is filled with branches carved into the soil. And think about ice crystals and coral, the bones that show on the wings of a bat, and the branches inside each of us as our blood pumps through arteries and veins. 


In Swirl by Swirl even the imprint page is presented in a swirl. On the first page we see a coiled snake which, on turning the page, uncoils. The obvious spiral is a snail shell but what about a Nautilus shell and a fern frond, a hedgehog curled into a protective ball and the horns on a ram. Elephants coil their trunks to hold each other's tails and grab forest branches - the shape is a swirl. And there are spirals in plants - sunflower, rose, hibiscus, and daisy. Oh, and the tornado page is spectacular.


Before Morning is a poem:

In the deep woolen dark,
as we slumber unknowing,
let the sky fill with flurry and flight.
Let the air turn to feathers,
the earth turn to sugar,
and all that is heavy turn light.
Let quick things be swaddled,
Let urgent plans flounder,
let pathways be hidden from sight.
Please - just this once
change the world before morning:
make it slow
and delightful
and white.

Imagine receiving this lyrical text (you are the illustrator) what do you see? Beth Krommes interprets each line in a delightful way and there are also pages in between with no words - to my mind they work to give a reader time to pause, and breathe, and ponder. See inside this book here. And read this review which has teaching ideas for Before Morning. 

Blurb: There are planes to fly and buses to catch, but a small child wishes for a different sort of day. When clouds gather and heavy flakes begin to fall, her invocation comes true.

Book List

  • We Are Branches Clarion/HarperCollins, 2023
  • Before Morning HMH Books for Young Readers, Fall 2016
  • Blue on Blue Beach Lane Books, 2014
  • Swirl by Swirl: Spirals in Nature Houghton Mifflin, 2011
  • The House in the Night Houghton Mifflin, 2008 
  • Butterfly Eyes and Other Secrets of the Meadow Houghton Mifflin, 2006 
  • The Hidden Folk Houghton Mifflin, 2004 
  • The Barefoot Book of Earth Poems (formerly The Sun in Me) Barefoot Books, 2003
  • The Lamp, the Ice, and the Boat Called Fish Houghton Mifflin, 2001
  • Grandmother Winter Houghton Mifflin, 1999


“I found my way to this medium through my interest in wood engraving,” says Krommes, who was working as an art director for a computer magazine when she began creating commercial art of her own. “Back in 1982, I happened to attend an exhibition called ‘Three New Hampshire Wood Engravers: Nora Unwin, Herbert Waters, and Randy Miller’ at the Sharon Arts Center in New Hampshire. Soon afterward I took up wood engraving and was juried into the 
League of New Hampshire Craftsmen.”


From The House in the Night by Susan Marie Swanson
Image source: Artists network (note this site contains advertisements)


Monday, May 6, 2024

Cricket in the Thicket by Carol Murray illustrated by Melissa Sweet



There are thirty poems in this lively collection and as a bonus each page also has a small fact box with extra science details about the featured 'bug'.

Walking Stick Courage

If it's skinny
like a twig - 
and it looks 
like a twig - 
and it feels
like a twig - 
then -
it must be a twig.
C'mon, let's touch it.
You first!

I was browsing the poetry section of the library I visit each week (looking for one poem in a picture book for an IBBY talk we are preparing) when I spied this 'sweet' looking poetry collection. Melissa Sweet's art is always so special. Now for the bad news - yes this is out of print - but it might be available in your local or school library. This book was published in 2017.


Sweet’s dependably eye-catching illustrations—infused with humor here—are an appropriate match. Care was given to balancing gender among those poems that use pronouns, and there is, incidentally, a note devoted to the fact that female ladybugs are nearly indistinguishable from male ladybugs. Happy-go-lucky fun with words, collage, and a smattering of facts about bugs. Kirkus

Cricket in the Thicket is an entertaining and informative collection of poems.  Poems are written from a child-like perspective, using vocabulary and sound words they will enjoy.  The poems have a smooth rhythm and flow.  Often a whimsical approach is taken when describing the insects, such as the idea of hugging a ladybug or a cricket being an alarm. Books 4 Learning

See more books by Carol Murray here

Carol describes her book: A nonfiction picture book of poetry about fascinating insects with accompanying facts, notes, and illustrations by the Caldecott-winning Melissa Sweet.

Pray tell us, Mr. Mantis,

Do you pray or simply prey?

Do you scout about for victims

Or fold your hands all day?

In addition to the playful rhyming poems, the supplementary text highlights surprising facts about bugs of all kinds - from familiar ants to exotic dragonflies, cringe-worthy ticks and magnificent fireflies. Melissa Sweet's collage-inspired mixed-media illustrations beautifully render these creatures and complement the poems' whimsical tones. This is an enchanting and informative look at a perennial topic of interest for kids - cool bugs!

Carol Murray loves ladybugs, Melissa Sweet loves stick insects and I love the idea (I have never seen one of course) of fireflies.

We glitter and glimmer
and put on a show
in honor of Earth - 
come and share in our glow!




Woven in, around and under the title text Melissa Sweet places many of the bugs highlighted in the narrative.  She gives them personality with a plus! The varnished red on cricket and green on thicket add to the pizzazz of her design.  ... These illustrations rendered in watercolor and mixed media are as fascinating as the subjects they feature.  On the title page a grasshopper is leaping over an array of flowers beneath the text.  On the dedication page a close-up of a leaf shows a grasshopper munching out a large hole.  He is looking right at the reader through the gap in the leaf. For each poem a distinctive, individualistic image has been created, many of them bringing the insect world closer to readers. ...  Her unique details will have you stopping at every page turn; a cricket poised on the edge of a red tennis shoe, ants crawling over a single stalk as a night scene unfolds, inchworms and measuring tape for a garden plot, the B in buzz becoming bumblebee wings, six circles showing a roly-poly rolling...up and unrolling and June bugs blasting against a light bulb.  ... Librarian's Quest

Sunday, May 5, 2024

Ferris by Kate DiCamillo



"Every story is a love story. Every good story is a love story."

Ferris (real name Emma Phineas Wilkey) was born under the amusement park Ferris Wheel ten years ago. Her grandmother was there to witness the event and Ferris is sure she can remember the moment her grandmother, Charisse, caught her. 

I guess if you think about it every family is a little bit eccentric, but Ferris sure does have an interesting cast of characters in her life. 

Charisse, her grandmother, is a central figure in Ferris's life. They share a very tender bond. Charisse lives upstairs in the family home. Her son is Ferris's dad and her other son - Uncle Ted - has moved into the basement. One of the sweetest parts of this story comes near the end when we meet the owner of the hardware store Allen Buoy - he has secretly been in love with Charisse for decades. Charisse calls Ferris Emmaphineas. "Ferris figured she had spent more than half of her time on earth in Charisse's room - talking to her grandmother, listening to her, playing gin rummy with her, and reading to her from the Bible and also from a battered paperback copy of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass."

Dad is the quiet member of the family. He an architect by day and a reader of the encyclopedia in his spare time. He also loves to repeat a cryptic saying at every turn - "The dogs bark but the caravan passes by."  Ferris explains this by saying "you can bark about what you want or shout about it, but that the world doesn't care that much really; it just keeps on doing what it's doing."

Mum is pragmatic. She is a high school maths teacher. I love her life commentary: "I'm not hosting a dinner party, Charisse. ... If Ted wants to get out of bathrobe and come up the stairs and sit down at the table and sit down with us, he is perfectly welcome to do that. But did I extend him a gilded invitation? No, I did not."; "It's always something around here, itsn't it?"; "I do not want this to turn into some incident that we will read about in the paper the next morning as we sit in the smoldering ruins of our house."

Pinky, is her sister. She totally bounces to her own beat moving from one obsession to another. One day she wants to be famous and runs about in a black cloak with an imaginary sword, then she decides she needs to have her name on a wanted poster for being a bank robber, then she discovers Houdini and his famous escapes. Her real name is Eleanor Rose but NO ONE is allowed to use that name. The tooth incident will make you shudder.

"Boomer was the dog. He was part sheepdog and part German shepherd, and also, according to Ferris's father, part woolly mammoth."

"Aunt Shirley was blonde and pink. She looked like someone who had been spun out of sugar and placed on top of a celebratory cake."

Uncle Ted has a PhD in Philosophy, he is a sign painter, but he has left his job now he is working on a mural in the Wilkey basement. 

There are lots of music references in this book but the most important one is the piece Billy Jackson keeps playing - The Mysterious Barricades. Hear it here at a slower tempo. I also like the guitar version. I really wish I had taken the time to listen to this before reading this book - it sure does set an additional beautiful tone to the story as Billy Jackson sits in the Wakely house playing this tune in the background to all family happenings. And I had no idea Billy Jackson was such a piano virtuoso. 

Les Barricades Mystérieuses (The Mysterious Barricades) is a piece of music that François Couperin composed for harpsichord in 1717. 

Here are a set of questions to use with a group reading Ferris. Oddly these notes do not list all the wonderful Mielk words from the book. Here are a few: ludicrous; gilded, intimation, ignoble, bereft, insouciant (a new word for me meaning unconcerned or indifferent), and unrepentant.

There is a poem on page 165 - I wonder if it is by Kate DiCamillo or some famous poet? Perhaps it is inspired by Walt Whitman?

I started to read Ferris when I was away for a weekend wedding event but the hustle and bustle of that distracted me. When I arrived home, I started Ferris all over again and read the whole book in one delicious afternoon. I did plan to talk about Ferris here on my blog straight away but then I decided - no - I needed to read it all over again. I so rarely re-read books but with Kate DiCamillo I make an important exception. I have read Because of Winn Dixie three times, The Tale of Despereaux twice, The Tiger Rising twice and The Magician's Elephant twice. 


Use the label Kate DiCamillo from this post to find the books that I have talked about on this blog. 

I hope someone somewhere has based their PhD on the writing of Kate DiCamillo. Here are a few of my observations:

  • Kate DiCamillo writes with a unique voice and this lingers with the reader long after the book is finished. 
  • Kate DiCamillo creates quirky, individual characters that we care very deeply about. Boomer is described as having “a gentle soul”; Charisse is described as a romantic; Ferris’s mom is described as practical and pragmatic; -Pinky is described as monomaniacal; -Ferris’s dad is described as mild-mannered; and Shirley is described as formidable.
  • Her writing is always emotional but she adds tiny moments of humour - I actually laughed out loud twice in this book on the third reading.
  • No words are wasted. Readers are easily able to fill in complex back stories for her characters.
  • Words are important - they are more than tools to tell a story. In this book there are 'big' words invested with enormous meaning and emotion. I mentioned some in this post. They work as a scaffold to help readers. Mrs Meilk, bless her, has inspired Ferris and her friend Billy Jackson to do more than learn new words - they embrace them.
  • Every book by Kate DiCamillo is unique and yet there are links between them. Ferris brings her community together for example, just as we saw with our favourite little girl Opal in Because of Winn Dixie. And of course, again we have a very special dog in Ferris - his name is Boomer.

I just re-read Betsy Bird's review of Raymie Nightingale and, to me, so many of her wise words also apply to Ferris. 

  • I like the wordplay, the characters, and the setting. I like what the book has to say about friendship and being honest with yourself and others. ... 
  • And in a book like this, you find that the characters are what stay with you the longest.
  • DiCamillo excels in the most peculiar of details.
  • Sadness is important to DiCamillo. As an author, she’s best able to draw out her characters and their wants if there’s something lost inside of them that needs to be found.
I will leave it to your own reading to discover the sadness in this book Ferris. Besty also mentions peculiar details here are a couple I enjoyed in Ferris:
  • "Twilla had sat down and picked up a copy of Good Housekeeping that had a picture of a Jell-O mold on the cover."
  • "Ferris gave her hand to Billy Jackson ... Billy's hand was sweating. His glasses were attached to his head with a strap, and Ferris knew almost immediately, from that very first moment, that she didn't want to ever lose hold of Billy Jackson."
  • Ferris describes Big Billy's Steakhouse - "Ferris walked across the red carpet (everything in the steakhouse was red: the glass candle holders and the Naugahyde* booths and the tablecloths, even the window were made of a pebbled red glass)."   * a vinyl covering used for furniture.
  • Mrs Mielk wears oversized fuzzy pink bedroom slippers. 
I would add another theme in Ferris to the list above - light - sunlight and candlelight and the colour yellow. Can I also say this is NOT a ghost story but it does contain a ghost - this will make sense when you read Ferris. Add this book to your library and home collection TODAY. Here is the US cover:



Here are some reviews with more plot details:


Publisher blurb Walker Books AustraliaIt’s the summer before fifth grade, and for Ferris Wilkey, it is a summer of sheer pandemonium. Her little sister, Pinky, has vowed to become an outlaw. Uncle Ted has left Aunt Shirley and, to Ferris’s mother’s chagrin, is holed up in the Wilkey basement to paint a history of the world. And Charisse, Ferris’s grandmother, has started seeing a ghost in the doorway to her room – which seems like an alarming omen given that she is feeling unwell. But the ghost is not there to usher Charisse to the Great Beyond. Rather, she has other plans – wild, impractical, illuminating plans. How can Ferris satisfy a spectre with Pinky terrorizing the town, Uncle Ted sending Ferris to spy on her aunt, and her father battling an invasion of raccoons?